1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a resource management program, resource management process, and resource management apparatus for managing IT (Information Technology) resources including hardware resources and software resources, and in particular, to a resource management program, resource management process, and resource management apparatus which can operate in liaison with other management systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, the software called the resource manager is widely used for managing IT resources including hardware resources and software resources in data centers and the like in order to reduce manual operations. In many cases, the resource manager can manage more than one resource in an integrated manner. However, the manner of managing resources is different in each type of resources. Therefore, the type of resources which can be managed by each resource manager is limited. Consequently, in the systems containing various types of resources, the resources in the entire systems are managed by a plurality of resource managers.
Further, as the functions of the respective resources are advanced, it becomes more common to manage each resource by using a dedicated resource manager. For example, a resource manager is provided for each of hardware elements such as servers, storages, and networks, or a unique resource manager is provided for each of product manufacturers. From the viewpoint of optimum use of the unique functions of resources, it is natural that the trend to provide the resource managers as above is accelerated.
In the case where a plurality of resource managers operate in a system, and various operations such as changes in the configuration of resources affect a wide area of the system, the resource managers are required to operate in cooperation.
However, the interface through which messages are transferred to and from the outside of the system is generally different for each resource manager. Therefore, it is difficult to make a plurality of resource managers operate in liaison with each other. For example, even if a server and a storage are newly introduced into the system, it is impossible to interconnect the resource manager for the server and the resource manager for the storage, so that the administrator is required to manually and independently make environment settings of the resource manager for the server and the resource manager for the storage. Consequently, a trouble is likely to occur and impede the service operation. For example, the trouble is that an erroneous setting impedes correct connection of the resource manager for the server and the resource manager for the storage.
Therefore, system operation by use of a plurality of resource managers produced on the basis of different architectures is necessary in a heterogeneous environment in which such resource managers coexist. In other words, a communication technique for interconnecting a plurality of dedicated resource managers is necessary, where each of the resource managers is designed to communicate with a resource to be managed by the resource manager by using an unique protocol.
For example, according to a known technique, a difference between interfaces is absorbed by using an agent arranged between a manager and a resource manager. According to this technique, a standard protocol is used in communication between the manager and the agent, and the agent receives a request for an operation, and converts the request into an unique command for use in the resource manager, in order to reduce development burden and improve maintainability. (See, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 10-11347.)
However, the technique of converting the command by using an agent cannot be used in a system in which a plurality of resource managers coexist, and each of the resource managers performs communication in accordance with an unique protocol. In such a case, an agent corresponding to each resource manager is required to cope with all the protocols corresponding to the other resource managers. Nevertheless, from the viewpoint of the efficiency in system administration, it is difficult to update the agents corresponding to all the existing resource managers every time a new resource manager which performs communication in accordance with an unique protocol is added.
In particular, it is expected that the integrated management and operation extend over a plurality of sites in a company, a plurality of companies, or the entire world through a grid or the like in the future. Therefore, resource management of a large-scale system is required to be performed by hierarchizing resource managers. In the above circumstances, it is desired that mutual connectivity between resources be ensured in a hierarchized heterogeneous environment.